Take into consideration the box office performance of Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker and the various efforts to build buzz around the upcoming Birds of Prey movie — not to mention James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad — now is probably the perfect time for DC Universe to premiere its Harley Quinn animated series. The violent, foul-mouthed, adult-oriented cartoon follows in the footsteps (or missteps) of the streaming service’s past offerings, like Titans, Doom Patrol, and Swamp Thing.
While both Titans and the already canceled Swamp Thing approached their respective series by being self-serious to a fault, Doom Patrol brought a welcome sense of weirdness and humor to the low-budget superhero worlds of the streaming DC Universe. It’s no surprise, then, that Doom Patrol earned WarnerMedia’s niche service its best reviews, and in doing so has opened up the door for Harley Quinn, an irreverent take on the absurdity of superherodom and the co-dependent relationships that exist between heroes and their villainous counterparts.
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To that end, series creators Dean Lorey, Patrick Schumacker, and Justin Halpren, along with writer Jess Dweck, take aim at their title character’s problematic relationship with a murderous, abusive psychopath, one who happens to be inordinately popular among fans and, as is fitting with the ideas central to the series, is in his own co-dependent relationship with his nemesis, Batman. It’s a win-win for the series and for Harley, as it not only preemptively sets the stage for The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, but it also directly addresses the disturbing nature of Harley’s relationship with Joker.
That the relationship is toxic and abusive — both physically and emotionally — is the crux of the premiere episode, one that plays like an updated and extended (and far more cynical) version of the terrific ‘Harley’s Holiday’ from season 3 of Batman: The Animated Series. Instead of tracking the events of “one really bad day” in the life of the Clown Princess of Crime, the premiere tracks more than a year in the character’s life, after she’s left to wallow in Arkham Asylum following a run-in with Batman that sees Joker escape, leaving his girlfriend to deal with the consequences of their very violent actions.
The opening is about as subtle as an absurdly oversized mallet to the head, as Harley (Kaley Cuoco) sees her efforts repeatedly undercut and shouted down by Joker (Alan Tudyk), as they lay waste to a bunch of evil white men who refuse to take Harley seriously. It’s not long before Batman (Diedrich Bader) shows up and tosses Harley into Arkham while Joker escapes. From there, the episode becomes a series of vignettes, intended to underline the destructive co-dependency of Harley’s semi-obsessive relationship with the Joker, all while guiding her to a much-needed moment of clarity in which she, with the help of Poison Ivy (Lake Bell), comes to the realization that she’s her own woman, and as such is finally free to define herself on her terms, free from Joker’s influence.
The rest of the first season involves a newly single Harley as she aims to make it in Gotham as the city’s preeminent villain, upstaging her former beau whenever she can, and generally engaging in as much bloody, foul-mouthed mayhem as possible. To that end, Harley Quinn will likely appeal to fans of the darker DC Universe shows, as it takes advantage of being an animated series by becoming as brutal and coarse as it possibly can. Viewers’ mileage may vary when it comes to The Departed-level, f-bomb-heavy dialogue and the literally bone-crunching violence peppering each half-hour (ish) installment. There’s an edgelord quality to every episode that becomes tiring after a while, but, to the show’s credit, Harley Quinn at least approaches its extreme content with a wry smile, if not a knowing wink.
An unexpected highlight of the series is its depiction of an overworked and frazzled Commissioner Gordon, who mutters to himself while playing with the Bat signal and should probably cut back on the caffeine. Voiced by Christopher Meloni, Gordon becomes the show’s most reliable source of humor, one that turns the venerated policeman into a punchline and suggests Harley Quinn could have gone further with its derisive depictions of classic DC characters, and perhaps still will as the series moves forward.
For the time being, though, viewers can get their fill by watching a newly single Harley become the top crime boss in Gotham, all while earning some much-needed self-respect in her quest to definer herself outside the Joker’s oversized shadow.
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Harley Quinn season 1 premieres Friday, November 29 on DC Universe.
